by Rod Hughes

High winds in the Central Valley and Guanacaste province and rains in San Carlos and the Atlantic zone beat up the country this week. And while cold is relative to the person experiencing it, even the transplants from the United States and Europe would call that past few days decidedly chilly in the central highlands.

The tradition of local rural people is that the first 12 days of January (the “Pinta” in local parlance) predict the weather for the rest of the year, a day per month. If this country wisdom is true then this country is in for a meteorologically active first four or five months in 2008.

Gusting winds dropped a tree on a home in Pavas, a western suburb of San Jose, while wildly swinging limbs caused brief power outages, to give only two examples. Lightly-built tin roofs, the most common kind in the tropics, loosened and some hammered themselves to death. In the picturesque mountain canton of Acosta south of San Jose, the local police headquarters was partially stripped of its roof.

A woman motorist driving to the Pacific coastal beach, Samara, lost control of her car, crashed into a tree and was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. But other than this mishap, the damage was confined to trees blocking roads, shorting power lines and falling on empty parked cars.

In San Carlos, rains caused graver problems and the emergency workers evacuated eight members of a family from their flooded home while 90 others decided the threat was not serious enough to warrant a night in a shelter.

The weather report predicts high winds will continue throughout today but that tomorrow may be better.